Chapter I.

That Christ, who is God and man in the unity of Person,
sprang from Israel and the Virgin Mary according to the flesh.

That divine teacher of the
Churches when in writing to the Romans he was reproving or rather
lamenting the unbelief of the Jews, i.e., of his own brethren, made use
of these words: “I wished myself,” said he, “to be
accursed from Christ, for my brethren, who are my kinsmen according to
the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom belongeth the adoption as of
children, and the glory, and the testaments, and the giving of the law,
and the ser563vice of God, and
the promises: whose are the fathers, of whom is Christ according to the
flesh, who is over all things, God blessed for ever.”24182418Rom. ix. 3–5. O, the love of that most faithful
Apostle, and most kindly kinsman! who in his infinite charity wished to
die—as a kinsman for his relations, and as a master for his
disciples. And what then was the reason why he wished to die? Only one;
viz., that they might live. But in what did their life consist? Simply
in this, as he himself says, that they might recognize a Divine Christ
born according to the flesh, of their own flesh. And therefore the
Apostle grieved the more, because those who ought to have loved Him the
more as sprung from their own stock, failed to understand that He was
born of Israel. “Of whom,” said he, “is Christ
according to the flesh, who is over all things, God blessed for
ever.” Clearly he lays down that from them according to the
flesh, was born that Christ who is over all, God blessed for ever. You
certainly cannot deny that Christ was born from them according to the
flesh. But the same Person, who was born from them, is God. How can you
get round this? How can you shuffle out of it? The Apostle says that
Christ who was born of Israel according to the flesh, is God. Teach us,
if you can, at what time He did not exist. “Of whom,” he
says, “is Christ according to the flesh, who is over all,
God.” You see that because the Apostle has united and joined
together these, “God” cannot possibly be separated from
“Christ.” For just as the Apostle declares that Christ is
of them, so he asserts that God is in Christ. You must either deny both
of these statements, or you must accept both. Christ is said to be born
of them according to the flesh: but the same Person is declared by the
Apostle to be “God in Christ.” Whence also he says
elsewhere: “For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to
Himself.”241924192 Cor. v. 19. It is absolutely
impossible to separate one from the other. Either deny that Christ
sprang from them, or admit that there was born of the virgin God in
Christ, “who is,” as he says, “over all, God blessed
for ever.”